York recently made the papers because the city wants to launch a living wage to reduce poverty. This idea is not new. In fact, it wouldn't be difficult to imagine that by now the living wage would sit alongside the national minimum wage as part of UK working life. It was as far back as 2010 that David Cameron described it as "an idea whose time has come".

However, in local government in particular progress has been slow. The living wage is defined as a wage that can support a normal standard of living, and at the Local Government Association (LGA) conference in Manchester this year, my colleagues asked councillors for their views on this form of pay.

Most of the people they asked suggested a discussion had taken place on whether the living wage should be introduced. A Unison branch survey just completed shows that about 80 councils have introduced it in some form.

It seems there is clearly welcome talk and growing interest, but despite these positive signs 500,000 local government workers – mostly women, many part-time workers – earn less than £7.45 pence an hour. Just a handful of councils are accredited as true living wage employers by the Living Wage Foundation.

The interest expressed by some councils is somewhat at odds with councils' attitudes to pay and conditions in recent years. Within the public sector as a whole, local government is the horribly poor relation when it comes to pay – with the lowest bottom rate of all.

Only those employees on the very bottom pay point of £7.31 in the NHS fail to meet the living wage target. Police and probation support staff pay scales start at £7.66 and £7.50 respectively.

The 18% decline in local government earnings since the Coalition came to power in 2010 reflects a much longer-term downward trend since 1997, with pay awards falling below inflation.

At local level, unsocial hours premia, car allowances, sick pay and even bargain basement wages have all been under attack, adding to our members' financial hardship. So while talk of the Living Wage becomes louder, our members become ever poorer – in absolute and relative terms.

Not all councils have been happy with the slash-and-burn stance of the Local Government Employers and the LGA. At the association's annual conference a number expressed their discontent at the three-year pay freeze from 2010-13 and the hard-wrung 1% offer this year.

This discontent has led some to move outside the sector-wide bargaining arrangements – the National Joint Council – and do better local deals. Oxford city, with a bottom rate exceeding the living wage, a travel-to-work subsidy and no compulsory redundancy agreement is one of them. Others are threatening to follow, and the collective bargaining that most councils say they want to keep is creaking at the seams.

Implementation of the living wage in local government would have to be done with care.

The very top of the pay spine hosting about 1.5 million council workers is only £41,616 – dramatically lower than the Agenda for Change equivalent in the NHS.

Low pay is a problem throughout the structure and all have suffered the 16-year pay drop. Simply awarding the living wage to those in the bottom pay ranks would not do. There would need to be an increase throughout the structure. The use of job evaluation to establish equal-pay proofed differentials would also require that they are kept intact by retaining pay and grading structures that reflect those job evaluation outcomes.

We all know that the chancellor, George Osborne, and the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, have deprived councils of large wads of funding which are placing untold pressure on services and jobs. But can councils continue to be bargain basement employers when they are asking fewer staff to do more? In the last year alone the total gross pay bill contracted by 10% in real terms – on top of similar drops in the last few years. Morale is low and when things eventually look up, memories of miserly employers will surface.

Making the living wage the bottom rate of pay in local government and giving everyone an earnings boost would not only improve morale, reduce sick leave and let employees know that they are valued after all. It would inject some growth into local economies – and so the UK economy too.

Heather Wakefield is Unison head of local government, police and justice.